Use of vehicles such as compact excavators, forktrucks, wheel loaders, and the like for material handling, digging trenches, snow removal, and other material handling, construction, earth moving and maintenance applications is known. Typically these vehicles utilize combustion engines that generate exhaust gases and unwelcome loud operating noise. Use of such vehicles may also result in spilled fuel during operation or refueling of the vehicle engine.
While the compact size of such vehicles makes them ideal for indoor use, the resulting exhaust gases, noise and fuel spillage makes these vehicles undesirable for indoor use, in urban areas, “green” construction sites, or in areas with stringent environmental regulations. It would be desirable to use electric powered compact vehicles for such industrial, residential or commercial indoor or outdoor sites. Because the batteries on these vehicles need to be charged prior to use, it would be beneficial if the batteries were charged during transportation to and from the site, were able to be recharged at the site, and were easily interchangeable between multiple pieces of equipment at the site.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,514,803 (“Wilks”), issued Apr. 7, 2009, is an example of prior art related to electrical power generation and storage devices for portable or emergency use. FIG. 1 of Wilks illustrates an apparatus comprises a towable trailer that incorporates a wheel driven electrical power generation apparatus used to charge a battery when the trailer is pulled and the wheels rotate within a optimum range. Batteries (e.g. chemical batteries) are placed on the trailer bed for transportation and charging. While this design may provide for charging of batteries during transportation, it does not address how these batteries are secured to the trailer bed during transportation and disadvantageously makes no provision for securing a vehicle to the trailer for transportation of the vehicle and charging of a battery in the vehicle during such transportation. A more efficient design would be desirable.